


Hot Chocolate Eyes with Fluffy Marshmallow Speckles

by FrailYard (FrailYard0220)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All Human, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Derek Hale is a barista, Fluff, M/M, Mentioned Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), No Spoilers, Obsessive hot chocolate consumption, Stiles Stilinski Can’t Flirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25316473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrailYard0220/pseuds/FrailYard
Summary: “One hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, please”———Or: Derek is a barista who can’t get over the cute guy that keeps ordering hot chocolate, a drink that Stiles is obsessively drinking just to see the hot barista behind the counter at his campus coffee shop.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 172





	Hot Chocolate Eyes with Fluffy Marshmallow Speckles

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Voldemort and Jean Valjean (Walk into a Coffee Shop)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/831990) by [PsychicPineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicPineapple/pseuds/PsychicPineapple). 



> Lightly inspired by multiple Sterek coffee shop AUs I’ve recently got obsessed with, most prominently ‘Voldemort and Jean Valjean (Walk into a Coffee Shop)’ by PsychicPineapple, where I got the ‘Hot barista’ thing from. 
> 
> Also their ages have been altered to 22 (let’s say Stiles took a sabbatical year before college, and now he’s a senior) and 25, shrinking their canon age gap of roughly 6-7 years to just 4.
> 
> (Sorry for the typos and long sentences that start halfway through. I haven’t had time to change them yet)

“What can I get you?”

“One hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, please”

Derek grabs a cup and fills it in with the relative information like he didn’t already know the order by heart.

He would like to say that he remembers the order because he’s never seen a grown man being so serious and unashamed whilst ordering hot chocolate, which he respects. That and the fact that he has been coming in to order it twice a week, not that Derek’s counting. 

No, Derek doesn’t remember it because the guy has cute mop of brown, well ruffled, bed-head, or because he has moles scattered across his skin that Derek wants to play connect the dots with, or because his smile could make you melt.

And Derek definitely doesn’t remember it because the thought that popped into his mind when he was first faced with the beautiful creature was that his eyes looked like two warm pools of steaming hot chocolate, which wasn’t even true as they were closer to a neat whiskey colour. Still, the hot chocolate eyes felt like a more homey comparison, so that’s what he was dubbed in Derek’s head.

But he was still sure that he just remembers him because he’s one of the few polite college students that pass through the coffee shop on campus. Probably.

But it’s not like he can just prepare the order before asking it, that would be way too creepy especially since he must be a good 4-5 years older than him. He was fairly sure that 25 year olds should not be crushing on collage students.

So, he asks Chocolate-eyes what he wants in vain every time he comes in, even though he hasn’t changed his order once, more than to ask for an extra drizzle of chocolate sauce on top that Derek somehow keeps forgetting to charge him for.

“Anything else?” Derek asks after clearing his throat, realising he’s been staring at the cup for to long.

“No thanks” the guy fills in.

“Right” Derek says, because of course he can’t handle awkward tension. “That will be three-seventy“ he tries to save himself and rings the man up before turning a around and starting to make drink.

Upon receiving it the guy takes it over to the lid/spice/spoon station and Derek can’t help but look as he pours an excessive amount of cinnamon and cardamon on top of the already heavy cream layer.

He holds back a smile as Chocolate-eyes takes a sip and let’s out a content noise.

*

Stiles has a problem with hot chocolate, and he is man enough to admit that.

He’d liked it all his childhood, drinking it on winter days with his best friend Scott, even though it never got that cold in Beacon Hills as far as winter days go. Still, he’d drink it as often as he could and as his mother would let him, which sadly wasn’t often enough according to an 8-year old.

It had never been this bad though, worsening to a horrible degree during his senior year of college, and yes, he is aware not many other seniors on campus went out for hot chocolate twice a week.

It wasn’t so much about the hot chocolate that enticed him anymore, he was actually getting pretty sick of it and had taken to dousing it in spices to get some variation.

No, it wasn’t the beverages that kept drawing him into the campus coffeeshop, but the smoking hot, pile of sex-on-legs, barista behind the counter. 

How was he supposed to stop coming in after learning that adonis was serving the drinks? 

The barista had the tall, dark and handsome look combined with the constantly-brooding-with-a-secret-heart-of-gold aura nailed down, but maybe Stiles was reading into their five sentence conversations too much. He hadn’t exactly seen him do anything heart-of-gold like yet.

So yeah, he had a crush. A silly playground crush.

What could he do about it though? Ask him out? _No way._ Secretly watching from afar and obsessively drinking a child’s favourite drink to be near him was his preferred tactic of flirting. Scott always said he had the emotional maturity of a fourth grader anyway.

“What can I get you?” A voice asks him, effectively waking Stiles from his thoughts. He's reached the top of the line without realising it, and now the hot barista is almost staring him down. 

Stiles has been in queue for a good 10 minutes, and his eyes had obviously searched for the man since he stepped inside the door. Somehow, he thinks as their eyes meet, it wasn't enough time to prepare himself for the encounter. 

Stiles does his best to give him a small smile without looking too awkward. “Hi, uhm, hot chocolate, extra cream, please." he says "And can I get some chocolate sauce on top?” he hurries to fill in.

Hot barista nods absentmindedly as he goes through his procedure.

“Three-seventy” he replies whilst working with the cashier. 

When he's shouting out his drink order for pickup a minute later Stiles is right there, and their fingers touch for a brief moment as the barista hands it to him. Stiles quickly retracts it with his drink in hand and looks anywhere else than at him, willing his cheek to not start blushing.

Suddenly he doesn't want Hot Barista's attention as he watches Stiles drown his creamy mountain in spices, this time with the chocolate sauce almost running down the sides. He feels like he must've offended him, because he's still staring, especially when the barista might have been a little to generous with it.

Stiles swipes a finger through the cream before putting it in his mouth and tasting it.

He feels an urge to compensate for possibly offending this god-like specimen. He gives the barista a quick smile and points at the drink saying: "Dude, this is amazing”

Mental note to future Stiles, don't call a potential love interest by the name 'Dude' if you ever want to get a boyfriend. He groans inwardly, but the grin he get's in return from the barista warms him up inside, despite his verbal clumsiness. And he thinks that’s the highlight of his freaking day.

*

Derek has serious problems.

Not only should he not have a stupid crush on a guy in collage, but his stupid heart should definitely not start skipping beats just because his compliment had been the first thing Chocolate-eyes has said to him that wasn’t a polite order of hot chocolate.

And the sound he let out when tasting a finger full of cream should not have affected Derek like it had. Neither should the way he briefly closed his eyes or took his finger out of his mouth.

When they had locked eyes Derek had felt like a creepy deer caught in headlights, ogling the guy in the middle of the coffeshop, but it must not show because Chocolate-eyes just smiled. 

It was infectious. Derek couldn’t help but smile back.

But then it took a while before he saw the brunette again. He had mentally kicked his own ass over and over for being upset about it.

Derek thought maybe he had been caught staring after all, and hated himself for creeping out a guy so much that he didn’t even want to be near him. He had gotten those looks, and he’d hated them. He didn’t want Chocolate-eyes to hate him, let alone be uncomfortable.

So to say the heavens had lifted when he walks in the store a Wednesday two weeks later is an understatement. Derek is so relieved to see him that he’s sure a big, stupid grin is covering half his face as he opens his mouth to say: “Hey. What can I get you?”

The guy skimms over the menu with his eyes, mouth moving silently along as he reads it. “Double shot of espresso, please” 

Derek has to blink, because he was not expecting this. After two months of Chocolate-eyes ordering hot chocolate he had suddenly decided to become Coffee-eyes? Was that allowed?

The brunette seems to notice his sudden shift because he looks at Derek with his eyebrows creased and asks, “Are you okay?”

Derek shakes his head and gives him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I have a lot on my mind” he excuses himself.

“I know what you mean. Finals week” Chocolate-eyes says with a huff.

Derek gives him another quick smile and places the order in the cash register. “One large americano, on it’s way” he says. “Two-fifty, please”

The guy digs out a five dollar bill from his pocket and gives it to Derek and upon receiving his change he stuffes it directly into Derek’s tip jar.

“Hope it work out” he says lightly before walking a few tables away and setting his backpack down at an empty seat.

He gets a sudden urge to know everything about him. What his interests, likes and dislikes are, what his major is, what his family looks like, if he likes sugar in his coffee and what he thinks about late at night. Derek has a million and one questions but nothing comes out. He just watches him walk away.

*

Stiles starts unpacking his stuff and there’s so many books that they’re almost fully covering the surface of the two-person table. He groans out loud just thinking about how much he has to get done, but picks up his computer and gets to it in a very un-Stiles like manor. 

He must’ve been totally submerged in his research for Wildlife Biology class, because he doesn’t even realise that he’s still without his coffee after half an hour until he sees a body walk over in his peripheral view.

“Hey” a voice says.

Stiles ripps his eyes from his screen just as a glass full of dark brown coffee being set down on the table.

He looks up to meet the eyes of the hot barista and immediately rugs his earbuds out in one quick movement. 

“Eh, hi” he replies, confused as to why hot barista is staring at him like that.

“I think you didn’t hear me shout out your order so I just brought it over for you”

“Oh, yeah. Thank you” Stiles replies.

“You seemed pretty into it. What are you studying?”

“Wildlife Biology” he explains. “I want to become a veterinarian” 

The barista nods and looks like he’s about to walk away, but he lingers for just for a second. Stiles doesn’t want him to walk away, so he does the only thing he knows how to do well. He opens his mouth.

“It’s this essay about an animal of our choice, and the minimum word limit is 5000 words long and the essay is due this Friday but I’ve had so much else to do I just have a thousand words,” Stiles starts, because he had a tendency to babble when he didn’t know what else to do. Or just in general.

“Hence the double espresso?” Hot barista asks.

Stiles nods and takes a sip, because he’d honestly forgot about it whilst staring into the eyes of this dream boat.

“Yeah, but the problem is I chose wolves and now I can’t find any information about them, but it’s too late to change”

Hot barista’s eyes shines up at that. “Wolves? This might sound a bit weird, but I think I’d be able to help. My mom studies wolves for a living, if you’d like some pointers I could probably ask her? She loves spreading knowledge about them.”

Stiles eyes widen because this man must be his guardian angel.

“Yes, please. Take a seat.” He offered.

The guy glances around, no doubt to check on the other customers, but the coffee shop is half empty and no one is standing in line. All the customers are seated and served, so he turns back to Stiles and offers him a small smile.

“Just for a little while” he says and slides into the seat in front of Stiles. “Derek” he says and reaches his hand forward.

Stiles just stares at it, completely dumbfound that hot barista has an actual name. He’s been hot barista for so long that it takes Stiles a moment to even fathom the idea.

“Stiles” he says after a moment and shakes his hand, trying to ignore the shiver their light touch sends down his spine. “Nice to meet you”

* 

A little while turns into two hours, with a couple breaks on Detek’s side to serve the last few customers of the evening. The next day Stiles comes back, and they do it again, but they spend most of the time talking about anything and everything other than wolves and pack dynamic. Derek promises to ask his mom to email some notes over so that Stiles can finish his essay that evening, and Stiles smiles gratefully at him in a way that makes his heart flutter, and Derek can’t wait to see him again. 

But Stiles doesn’t come in the next day, Friday, and Derek tries his best to not feel disappointed, and reminding himself that he’s probably just finishing up his essay, going to classes and prepping for other exams.

It doesn’t work.

It’s not until that Saturday evening, when there’s a knock on his door, that he sees those Chocolate eyes again, right outside his doorstep. 

Before Derek can even ask why he’s there, grinning from ear to ear, or how Stiles found his address the brunette is already shoving a bottle of wine in Dereks hands and stepping inside.

“I spoke to your mom” he says and takes a look around. “Cool place, anyway, she gave me a bunch of tips and I feel really great about my essay now and I thanked her so much, but I wanted to thank you for setting it up and you weren’t at the coffeeshop this morning so I asked her for your address”

Derek closes the door behind Stiles as he takes a seat on the sofa, smiling at Derek. He continued his story whilst motioning to the bottle in Detek’s arms.

“I didn’t wanna show up empty handed and I didn’t know if you were a wine guy, but a bottle of tequila felt tacky and the whiskey was too expensive, so I hope this red-wine-on-a-college-budget is okay”

When he stoppa talking he looks at Derek expectedly, waiting for him to speak.

“You have a habit of making yourself at home, don’t you?”

Stiles blushes, and Derek can’t help but think he likes the pink tint covering his cheeks.

“Yeah, well, I-“ Stiles seems flustered, like he didn’t realise he had basically made camp in Derek’s couch where he was sitting cross legged on the fusion, with his shoes kicked off and laying on the floor. Derek likes the sight, he likes having Stiles in his couch, talking his mouth off. He straightens himself out and gives Derek a tentative smile. “All part of the Stiles charm”

Derek lets out a soft chuckle and shakes his head lightly. “Hang on and I’ll get us some glasses” he says reassuringly, because he doesn’t want Stiles to leave.

Derek contemplates his excistence as he takes out two wine glasses from a cupboard. Stiles is 22, and he’s the one that came over with a bottle of wine, and he’s the that invited himself in. It would be rude not to let him stay, and a waste when he was such splendid company, Derek argues. What’s the worst that can happen?

The worst that can happen turns out to be a tipsy Stiles leaning against his chest on the small couch as they watch a movie of his choice after he found out Derek hadn’t seen it two hours, a bottle of wine and one very cheesy delivery pizza deep into their conversation. Which isn’t that bad. 

Derek tried his best not to enjoy the way Stiles snuggles against him and sighs contemptibly into his chest once in a while. He tries not to notice how his body feels against his, and how he can practically feel the heat radiating of his body.

It was hard though. And by god was it hard to ignore the way Stiles’s lips were reddend from the wine as he looked back at Derek waiting for his reaction at certain parts of the movie. By the end, when he basically had shifted down to his lap, just staring at him with his foetus expression, and Derek was lulled and feeling courageous from the wine.

He’d just stared at Stiles’s lips, not hearing the question he asked, but watching them move. And then he’d let leaned down and pressed a light kiss to them, just to feel if they were as soft as he thought.

When he pulled away and opened his eyes Stiles was staring at him.

“Why did you do that?” Stiles asked. He didn’t seem offended, rather in disbelief.

Derek traces his thumb over Stiles lower lip and had to gulp down what would’ve been an embarrassing sound as the brunettte parted his lips lightly.

“Because I wanted to” be explains. “I’ve wanted it for a while now”

He moves his hand to trace it down Stiles cheek and his heart skips a beat when the younger man leaned into the touch, pressing his velvet skin into the palm of Derek’s hand.

“Is it... okay? That I did that?” Derek asks, because he suddenly Denver’s that he doesn’t know if Stiles is into guys.

Stiles grabbes the arm and presses a kiss to the wrist.

“Of course” he says and straightens up so he can kiss up the length of Derek’s arm. “Of course, of course, of course”

He sits up straight and throws a leg over Derek’s thigh. He grabs the baristas face in his hands and stares into those dark, mysterious eyes. “Yes, yes, yes. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you to do that”

They share a smile and before Derek can ask if he can do it again, Stiles lips are on his and his arms are thrown around Derek’s shoulders. Derek moves his hands to Stiles hips, squeezing them lightly as if to assure himself that Stiles is actually here, in his apartment, kissing him.

When they pull away he rests his forehead against Stiles’s for a second. Pulling himself back he looses himself in Stiles’s Chocolate-eyes, and he smiles wider. 

“It wouldn’t be too much to ask you on a date, would it?”

Stiles shakes his head and presses another kiss to Derek’s lips. 

“I think you better” he replies fondly.


End file.
